General practitioners’ encounters in rural and urban care centers in Isfahan with gynecological/obstetric and pediatric diseases

CONTEXT: General practitioners should be competent to be accountable for patients’ needs, but they do not acquire core competencies during education in medical schools. AIMS: This study was aimed at determine the most usual obstetric and gynecological as well as pediatric diseases in rural and urban care centers in Isfahan province. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: This is a cross-sectional descriptive study which was done in Isfahan province in 2011. Sixty-four physicians (general practitioners) in rural and urban health care centers in Isfahan province participated in this study. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Participants completed valid and reliable questionnaires for gynecological/obstetric and pediatric diseases. These questionnaires included some demographic data and diseases of each category (according to general medicine curriculum). Scales 1-5 for each disease referral times was determined respectively as: Rare, sometimes, weekly to monthly, daily to weekly and daily. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: The data were descriptively analyzed by SPSS 11.5(SPSS Inc. in Chicago). RESULTS: Nearly 43.7% of participants were male. The mean age of participants was 39.0 ± 7.0 and their mean working experience was 11.3 ± 5.9 years. The highest referral times’ score in rural and urban care centers in gynecological and obstetric group was vaginal discharge; in pediatrics, it was the common cold. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, the extent to which general practitioners encountered different gynecological/obstetric and pediatric diseases in rural and urban care centers in Isfahan province was determined. Although, these data are useful for decision makers to establish medical core curriculum, other factors such as seasonal load of diseases should also be observed to determine the differences between rural and urban care centers in most usual diseases of women and children.